Find The Hypocrisy

College football needs a playoff because the national champion should to be determined on the field.

The national champion in college basketball won't be the real national champion because all the best teams are at home after getting knocked out by a bunch of lousy mid-majors who had no business making the field in the first place.

So which one do you want, almighty sports media? The grueling regular season that weeds out the pretenders and tries to pair the best two teams over the entire course of the season OR the crap-shoot tournament where anything can happen and you can end up with an 8- or an 11- seed playing for the championship?

It just goes to show that the media has one function, and one function only - to bitch about the status quo.

My one function? To bitch about them...

Behold, KEGASUS!!!

I can't even believe this is real, but it is! This may be the best mascot in the history of sports. In an age where sporting events HAVE to have a mascot (see every World Cup and Olympics for the past 50 years), the Preakness has caught mascot fever.

The Preakness is kind of the red-headed stepchild of horse racing. The Kentucky Derby is classic, and just rules unchallenged in horse racing. The Belmont is in New York, and usually has a lot of drama with a horse trying to clinch that elusive Triple Crown. However, the Preakness is sandwiched in between with much concern. Apparently, the host track, Pimlico, is even at risk of losing the 2nd leg of the Triple Crown.

So what is Pimlico to do? Rebrand itself as the hot, happening horse race. They have decided to skew to a younger demographic. As a result, Infield Fest will be the centerpiece of their promotion. We all know what goes on in the infields of horse racing events. Drinking, drinking, drinking, nudity, and more drinking. So who better to represent a horse race that wants a bunch of drunk fans?

Yeah, a half-man, half-horse centaur that wants to party!!! This is an actual poster, and that is the actual name. Kegasus.

PLEASE CLICK THIS OFFICIAL LINK TO INFIELD FEST to hear Kegasus speak!

Sign me up!

Two Quick Rants

I don't have the time or content for two full posts, so here are two quick rants in one post that have been driving me crazy.

America Is Not Europe (Thank God)
Gas prices are rising (again), so it's time for the inevitable comparisons between America and Europe. Europe's gas prices are much higher. Europe has great mass transit. Shut Up! Guess what? If our entire country was the size of Oregon - as is the whole of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales) we could probably coordinate this shit a lot better. The entire continent of Europe is only about the size of our midwest. Our country is much, much larger - the third largest in the world, actually. You know what the largest country in Europe is? France, ranked number 41, and 15 times smaller than the US. If trains didn't stick in the early 20th century, they won't now. We're too big, and we're too spread out. The European model will not work here so just give it a rest and let me buy by $4/gallon gasoline in peace.

Soccer Evaluations
When I was at McNick, there was a kid that played for Anderson HS named Craig Yaks. He was some sort of big shot in ODP and always was talked about. Thing is, whenever we played Anderson, there were about four other players (Rosser, Zig, Ash, et al) that I thought were better and I was more worried about facing than Yaks. Yaks never impressed me, but he was supposedly the tits in Cincy soccer. We always talked about how the ODP stuff was all political, just who you knew. That goes all the way to the top in US Soccer. After the last two friendlies people have come away praising Michael Bradley, who did nothing for me aside from a cracker that was saved near the end of the Paraguay game. He doesn't play for his club team, and it shows. His main contribution seems to be turning the ball over then immediately fouling someone. And somehow Bornstein - seriously, could not start for my club team - is still on this team. Conveniently, all US soccer media are former players and they refuse to criticize the system. So either I am much, much worse at understanding soccer that I've presumed all these years or US Soccer is fucked. Judging by our recent results, it looks like the latter.

War Eagle!!! - UPDATE!

On November 19th, I posted a story about Auburn and the whole Cam Newtong scandal. If you read this blog, you remember, but here were some of the assumptions I made regarding the situation at that time:

ASSUMPTION 1: Cam Newton got cash for eventually signing at Auburn.
ASSUMPTION 2: Other higher regarded recruits have gotten money for signing a LOI.
ASSUMPTION 3: If Newton was going for $180k, then other players have gotten more.
ASSUMPTION 4: ND is getting overlooked by elite talent, because we are not paying players to sign a LOI.

Even then, I still had hopes that maybe, just maybe this was blown out of proportion. I was suspicious that the NCAA resolved the matter almost immediately, with no penalty at all - even though Newton's father literally admitted to soliciting cash, which is an NCAA violation.

Well, set your DVRs to HBO tonight at 10pm for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. I will cue the Doors song right here, "The End." This really is the beginning of the end of college football, perhaps basketball and maybe even the NCAA as we know it.

The show will interview four former Auburn players and they will describe pay-for-play at Auburn as well as the secret cash payments made during recruiting. Stanley McClover even describes receiving a bookbag full of cash to sign at Auburn - Blue Chips style!!! Here is one little tidbit from the upcoming show:

Kremer voiceover: “McClover said it wasn’t until he attended an all-star camp at Louisiana State University that he realized how the game is played. A game of money and influence.”

McClover: “Somebody came to me, I don’t even know this person and he was like, ‘we would love for you to come to LSU and he gave me a handshake and it had five hundred dollars in there. … that’s called a money handshake … I grabbed it and I’m like, ‘wow,’ hell I thought ten dollars was a lot of money back then. Five hundred dollars for doing nothing but what I was blessed to do. I was happy.”

Kremer to McClover: “What did you say to the guy when he hands you five hundred dollars?”

McClover: “Thank you and I’m seriously thinking about coming to LSU.”

Kremer voiceover: “But McClover says there were money handshakes from boosters at other football camps too. At Auburn for a couple hundred dollars and at Michigan State. All the schools denied any wrongdoing. And things really started heating up a few months later when he went to Ohio State for an official visit where schools get a chance for one weekend to host prospective athletes. McClover says there were money handshakes from alumni there too. About a thousand dollars. And something else to entice him.”

McClover: “They send girls my way. I partied. When I got there I met up with a couple guys from the team. We went to a party and they asked me to pick any girl I wanted.”

Kremer: “Did she offer sexual services?“

McClover: “Yes.”

Kremer: “Did you take them?”

McClover: “Yes.”

Kremer: “McClover committed to Ohio State right after that weekend. The recruiter at Ohio State who says he dealt with McClover that weekend denied the school was involved in any wrongdoing.”

• On what caused McClover to sign with Auburn over Ohio State:

Kremer voiceover: “McClover says what he asked for was money. A lot of it. And that he got it. Delivered in a bookbag, exact amount unknown.”

Kremer to McClover: “You opened it up, what are you thinking?”

McClover: “I almost passed out. I literally almost passed out I couldn’t believe it was true. I felt like I owed them.”

So there you have it. That's just a small part of one of the interviews. Obviously Auburn is going down. Looks like some pretty damning stuff against OSU as well. On top of the current Tressel controversy, I'd say he is now dead man walking. I don't know how the NCAA ignores this. I think it might be the end of the NCAA itself. What happens in college sports after that? I have no idea.

I Am The Smartest Man Alive!

Ian posted a blog entry before last Thanksgiving worrying about the new airport security measures with the "full body scanners."

So Very, Very Tempted

I laughed out loud when I read this article today on CNN.com

Cancer risk is low, but possible in airport scanners

If you read my comment from the blog post 5 months ago, you will see that my conclusion mirrors that of the Archives of Internal Medicine, a very well respected journal in medicine. Or is it the other way around??? I think our little blog here is getting very, very powerful!!! Next, I'm just waiting for the NFL and NFLPA to click on, and they can see my simple solution and end this stupid lockout.

By the way, I must mention the total douche in the CNN article that was quoted as an "expert," David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at the Columbia University Medical Center.

“The bottom line is that both my paper and this suggest that there will be some cancers produced in the long run from mass screening with X-rays.

Notice how he quickly refers to his own paper. I guess he subscribes to the linear no-threshold dose model (LNT). Unfortunately, he is wrong. There is scientific debate over this topic, which I will not bore you with, but every radiological society agrees the LNT model is incorrect. The only people that believe it are government groups run by politicians that don't understand and are too scared of radiation and nuclear power to base their decisions on reasonable facts. But this a-hole goes even further.

“The analogy I usually give is with someone buying a lottery ticket. Your individual chance of winning is extremely small, but we do know that some people will indeed win. There is considerable uncertainty about just how many cancers that will be.”

No there f-ing isn't! It is nothing like a lottery ticket! Lottery odds are based on actual stats. This risk is based on a false assumption! Furthermore, his statement shows his ignorance. If he actually does believe in the LNT model, then HE CAN CALCULATE THE NUMBER OF ADDITIONAL CANCERS! THAT'S WHAT THAT MODEL DOES!!!! Very convenient that he leaves that important fact out. You also notice how the premise of the article is not mentioned again: If you are worried about getting cancer from a backscatter machine, then what the hell are you doing getting on a plane? You are over 100 times more likely to get cancer from the actual flight!!!

This is classic cover-you-butt politics. It makes me sick.

NFL Labor Dispute is a Joke!

So we all wait with baited breath as the media-proclaimed "Armageddon" approaches, 5pm Friday when the NFL CBA officially expires (after 2 extensions).

As we wait, it is clear that the only issue that really matters is that the owners need more money, and are debating about just how much. Increasing to 18 games will do that. A rookie wage scale will also do that. The NFLPA is willing to discuss those terms. The NFLPA, of course, wants better pension and healthcare for retired players. Seems they should be able to save for their healthcare like everyone else in America, but fine. That's peanuts.

The big issue is the revenue sharing plan. The media would have you believe the players and owners are $1 billion apart. Currently, the owners get $1 billion off the top before players get 59.6% of the rest. The owners have made a firm proposal of what they want with regards to revenue sharing: they want $2 billion off the top. The players have countered that they want to see the books, which will never happen. In lieu of that, the NFLPA proposed a 50% split of ALL revenue without taking anything off the top. Apparently, the NFL walked out at the mere thought of that.

So, are we really $1 billion apart? I prepared a little Excel table to calculate it all out. I have not seen this presented anywhere online, but I think it is 100% sound. You can see the numbers for yourself. The owners want an additional $18.625 million per team. The players are offering $8.375 million per team. In total, the actual difference between actual proposals that have been reported is $328 million.

So I, the great arbiter, have determined that a compromise will take the following form:

1) Get rid of any money off the top
As revenue grows (as it did since the last CBA), anything off the top becomes less valuable.

2) Split the difference in the two "on record" proposals:

• Owner share of revenue is 51.8% (an increase of $432 million or $13.5 million per team)
• Player share of revenue is 48.2 % (a decrease of the same amount)

3) Implement a simple rookie wage scale
This helps owners and veteran players. If less of the players' 48.2% is tied up for unproven rookie contracts, veterans get paid more! Owners will have more flexibility in the draft and holdouts will be over.

4) Implement a fund for player pension and healthcare
It is the right thing to do. These players get brutalized, and last on average 3 years in the league. The owners still make money when they are walking corpses (see Al Davis).

5) If that isn't enough, go ahead and add 2 more games
More money, but reduce the preseason and limit off-season OTA's. Nobody really thinks the NFL needs 2 more games, but fine.

This is a victory for owners who increase revenue. And the increased revenue is now protected from future increases to the total pot. They can also increase revenue for both sides by increasing games which increases the $9 billion pot. The players take a hit, but veteran salaries will increase with a rookie wage scale, and they get healthcare and pension.

GET IT DONE!!! I NEED TO START PLANNING A FANTASY SEASON!!!

CBA... WINNING!!!

Best (Video Game) Trailer Ever?

From time to time, we discuss movies on this blog, but this may be a first. CNN had an article this week about a new internet phenomenon - Dead Island.

Dead Island is an upcoming video game, in what I think is the funniest genre name of all, "horror survival." Horror survival is just what it sounds like. Some monsters are trying to kill you, and you must survive and solve the mystery. The first game I know of in this genre was Resident Evil. I remember many hours we all wasted in the basement on Copperglow playing Playstation and trying to win that one. Anyway, there are countless sequels, knock-offs, spin-offs and even movies that now fill this niche. Dead Island would just be another in a long list, right?

Wrong. Seeking to avoid being another face in the crowd, the developer, Deep Silver, created a pretty amazing trailer to release online. How amazing, watch for yourself above. It has instantly become an internet sensation. Many are calling it the best game trailer ever released. It is essentially guaranteed to become a blockbuster when it is released. There is even talk of an actual movie - and there isn't even a release date yet on the game!

Is it the best video game trailer ever? I have no idea. Have you ever even seen a video game trailer? I haven't. But I watched it, and agree. It is phenomenal. If actual movie trailers were this good, Hollywood could guarantee a #1 opening weekend. I'll never buy this or any other computer game, but I am definitely rooting for Dead Island to do well. Deep Silver should be rewarded for their awesome preview. Plus, I want some sequels so I can see more awesome trailers like this!

ps: Great, now I have to start planning for another end-of-the-world scenario. I thought I had my bases covered with plans set for foreign invasion (Red Dawn), global pandemic (The Stand), vampire takeover (Salem's Lot), asteroid impact (Deep Impact) and alien invasion (Independence Day). Guess I'll start working on a plan for zombie invasion while on vacation. In fact, I now must have a plan B for each of the above scenarios should they occur while away from home on vacation!!!

(Tell me you don't have plans for the above. You know you do too!!!)

Ultimate Media Bias

Top: Photo as published in Spanish daily, AS
Bottom: Screen grab of the same moment from the actual broadcast

We here in America are pretty used to the fact that the news is basically propaganda. Depending on the source, you get selective, slanted facts to reinforce whatever opinion that particular outlet holds. We all know the usual suspects: conservative FoxNews, liberal MSNBC, etc.

I think we need to add AS to that list. AS is a daily sports publication in Madrid, Spain. Apparently, their bias is toward their beloved local team, Real Madrid. So last week, Real arch-rival Barcelona FC was playing Athletic Bilbao in a match in La Liga. Barcelona scored first, before Bilbao evened it up. Then Lionel Messi scored late to seal the match, much to the dismay of all Madrid as Real Madrid is now 5 points back in the standings.

So above is the picture that AS ran following the match. They claimed Barcelona's victory was a joke as the first goal was clearly scored by an offside attacker. Looks pretty obvious, right? Well, Barcelona fans didn't remember it that way. They pulled up their DVRs and did a screen grab of the play in question, pictured below the newspaper pic. Low and behold - the picture published in the paper had DIGITALLY REMOVED AN ENTIRE DEFENDER!!!

AS ran a half-hearted apology the next day:

"We apologise for the error in the computer graphics in the 1-0 incident."

Yeah, anyone could have made such a careless mistake! I am always digitally subtracting Ava or Molly out of our pics by accident!

Here's The Thing...

Apple is in the news again this week, this time for their new in-app subscription service. A lot of content providers, i.e. newspapers and magazines, and developers are complaining.

A lot of people like to complain about Apple's practices. Hell, I've bitched myself about them plenty of times on this very site! But over time, and after using multiple Apple products for years, I've come to realize something - everything Apple does is with the consumer or end-user in mind.

• You know who wins with Apple's new subscription service? People who own iOS devices who are now guaranteed the same or better price when subscribing through the app.
• You know who wins with Apple's closed* iOS ecosystem? People who own iOS devices and get regular updates and one-stop shopping for apps.
• You know who wins with Apple's design and interface guidelines? Device owners who get intuitive, easy to use and see (ed: High-five, Mom and Dad!) UIs.
• You know who wins with Apple's somewhat crazy AppStore approval system? Consumers who want solid apps that don't try to rip them off.

What I've come to realize is that if people are bitching about Apple it's for one of two reasons:

1. They are a content provider or developer and Apple has chosen to protect consumers over them.
2. They are Android or Windows Phone proponents and are directly competing with Apple.

You know who I don't ever hear complaining about Apple's products or decisions? People who actually own Apple products. Just sayin'...

* - "Closed" is an extremely ambiguous term almost exclusively used by Android developers in reference to iOS. Anything - anything - I've need to do on iOS I've been able to do through an app or the OS directly.

Roll Damn Tide

Oh my God. I just was listening to the radio at lunch time and heard the most amazing, pathetic story concerning college football in a very long time.

Suspect arrested in Auburn tree poisoning

So a sports talk radio show in Birmingham hosted by Paul Finebaum received a call on January 27th. An Alabama fan, obviously bitter that Auburn won the BCS Title, called in to relay the story that when legendary coach Bear Bryant died in 1983, Auburn students celebrated and rolled the trees in Toomer's Corner. As you have heard after this season, Toomer's Corner is the traditional celebration spot for Auburn for decades. He was disgusted with this display, and had saved articles to prove it, even thought the host didn't believe him.

So for revenge, after Auburn's amazing comeback victory against Alabama in their annual rivalry game, the Iron Bowl, he drove to Toomer's Corner and poisoned the 130 year-old oak trees in Toomer's Corner with Spike 80DF. This is a highly toxic herbicide. He hung up saying, "Roll Damn Tide."

Apparently, Auburn officials were not amused. They immediately heard this and tested the soil around the trees. Sure enough, there is greater than 60 times lethal dose, and the trees will inevitably die. They called the radio station immediately and with the help of the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, Tallapoosa County Sheriff's Office, Dadeville Police Department, and Auburn University, tracked down Al from Dadeville. He is currently in jail and will likely stay for awhile.

The SEC is just sick.